LOCATION: 3.75 miles southeast
of Puerto Rico on north side of FM 1017.

SURVEYED: February 1976
by Virginia G. Stinson.

HISTORY: Martiniano Cantu
(1877-1960) was a partner of Sam Lane in both Hidalgo and
Starr Counties. In 1911, when he married Timotea Cavazos, daughter of Amado
and Maria Manuela Cardenas Cavazos of La Noria Cardenena Ranch, he purchased a
share in Sam Lane Ranch. The couple lived in the big ranchhouse with Mr. Lane.

They adopted Ester G. Cantu,
who died of scarlet fever in 1918, and is buried at Los Novillos Ranch, 1 1/2
miles east of Sam Lane Ranch headquarters, and once a part of Sam Lane Ranch.
Their daughter is Eugenia Cantu Guzman. [Cantu's connection with Los
Novillos is not clear, but the site was identified on a soil survey map of
1925 as Santa Timotea Ranch, name of his wife's patron saint.]

After
the death of Sam Lane in 1924, Cantu moved to La Noria Cardenena Ranch as
owner (either by bequest or purchase). He raised and shipped cattle.

The single gravesite is just
outside southeast corner of Los Novillos Ranch headquarters dooryard.

Inscribed on tombstone
(translated from Spanish by Goldsby Goza):
She died peacefully in the cold morning without a complaint, and with her eyes
turned to heaven. But in her family, such desolation since that sad,
unforgettable day. She was the happiness in our home, a model of
all the virtues. She was our delight and our joy. Why hast thou taken
her away, cruel death? Perhaps in heaven they needed a star of great brilliance
or a maiden most innocent and pure? Justice is Thy law, but oh God--star
or maiden, Thy judgment is difficult because our grief fills our souls.